Tagged: advocate

Today’s Dame of the Day is Iana Matei (April 30, 1960-). Matei married young and had a son, but later divorced her husband when he became a violent alcoholic. During the revolution, Matei fled from Romania to Serbia with her son. She was captured at the border and imprisoned, but Matei invoked a hunger strike until the United Nations acknowledged her situation. Following her release, she spent time in Australia before returning to Romania and founding Reaching Out Romania, a non-profit dedicated to rehabilitating sex workers and breaking the cycle of human trafficking.